In 2016, the cooperative has only the yield of 23 tons of shrimp with the profit of 1 billion VND, then in the crop in 2017, the cooperative harvested a total of 130 tons of shrimp, with a total value of 14, 6 billion and the profit of 6.75 billion.

 “"If in the shrimp farming crops in 2016, the cooperatives only reached a profit of 1 billion VND. In in 2017, some individual members reached the profit and above, if calculate the whole cooperative, the total profit was 6.75 billion”. Mr. Nguyen Hoang Anh - Director of Thanh Dat Cooperative in Hoa Tu 1 commune, My Xuyen district, Soc Trang province opened the story with impressive numbers.

Explaining the reasons for this success, according to Mr. Nguyen Hoang Anh, besides the integration of 5 shrimp farmer groups into the cooperative, the  support from the project "Sustainable and Equitable Shrimp production and Value Chain Development in Vietnam – SusV” funded by EU and co-implemented by ICAFis and Oxfam in Vietnam is very important for the success of the cooperative.

Thanks to shrimp farming, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Anh could build a large house and has the ability to support other poor households. Photo by: Pham Duy Tuong.

Mr. Nguyen Hoang Anh said: "At the beginning, the cooperative was directed toward gender equality, livelihood diagram, and the shrimp value chain linkages, such as: negotiating with companies, clean shrimp process, clean shrimp…"

Thanh Dat cooperative was established in March 2017 by integrating five shrimp – rice farmer groups as recommended by SusV project and the collective production expectation of the farmer groups’ members. The cooperative has 86 members with the production area of 97 ha, 230 ponds with water surface area of 68 ha; of which 40 ha for white leg shrimp farming (two crops/year) and 28 ha for black tiger shrimp farming (one crop/year)

After attending the training courses organized by SusV project, there have been a lot improvements on gender equity and production activities. At the beginning, there were only men joining in meetings, but, month by month, there were more and more women joining in meetings and they have become more active to express their own opinions. About shrimp farming, in 2016, the yield of the cooperative was 130 tons with the value of 14.6 billion VND with the profit of 6.75 billion VND.

Mr. Nguyen Hoang Anh happily said “this year, only a cooperative member - Mr. Duong Va Thanh reached to profit of one billion VND equal to total profit of the cooperative in 2016 and the lowest profit that a member got was 30 million VND.

Via the support of SusV project, the cooperative has linkages with shrimp seed suppliers such as kim Sa, Hoang Loc, Sinh Thai with the 25% lower price, with shrimp feed and bio, medicine suppliers such as Grobest company with the 35% lower price. The cooperative also signed contract farming with Vietnam Clean Seafood Corporation for outputs. However, according to Mr Nguyen Hoang Anh, The implementation of the contracts with the inputs suppliers is quite good, but the implementation of the contract with processing and exporting companies need to be improved, some cooperative members could not sell their shrimp for the company because of low yield.

 After harvesting shrimp, the pond has been cover by paddy field to ensure the sustainability. Photo by Phan Duy Tuong.

As planned by the cooperative in 2018, the cooperative aims to double shrimp production yield compared to 2017 (about 270 tons in 2018). Looking at me skeptical, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Anh said: "From the success in 2017, the cooperative found that, under favorable conditions, about 100,000 shrimp seeds will produce about 1 ton of commercial shrimp. Thus, with 40ha of white leg shrimp farming - 2 crops / year, the total stocking of 240 million shrimp seeds, or 240 tons of commercial shrimp, 28ha of black tiget shrimp farming - 1 crop / year will stock 30 million seeds - producing 30 tons of commercial shrimp.

Based on the cooperative’s potential, the plan is totally feasible, but Mr. Nguyen Hoang Anh and other management team members still have a lot worries especially about the financial sources.

As calculating, in order to have 270 tons of shrimp, they need 300 tons of shrimp feed and how the cooperative can help members access the loan to buy 50% of the feed. Therefore, besides revolving fund loans, the cooperative has signed contracts with feed and medicine suppliers so that the cooperative members can buy feed and medicine on credit with lower price than non-member (the total value of contract is 500 million VND)

Furthermore, the cooperative also mobilize internal financial resources by call for the contribution of 10 shares, each share is 30 million VND, the fund will be used to help its member to buy feed. At the end of the year, after deducting expenses, the cooperative will deduct 70% of profit for dividend payment and the remaining 30% will be used for business capital.

 The cooperative harvested shrimps also are at good size, and high food safe quality by only using biotic products. Photo by Pham Duy Tuong

Now, all production area of the cooperative only use biotic products, applying Vietgap and they apply farming and rice farming rotation to ensure sustainability. So that the shrimp processing and exporting company committed to buy shrimp with the higher price from 3,000 to 5,000 VND.

XUÂN TRƯỜNG - PHẠM DUY TƯƠNG, Nong Nghiep newspaper